The Canisius College baseball team scored 20 consecutive runs and set or tied four school records in its 24-8 victory over St. Bonaventure at the Demske Sports Complex on Wednesday afternoon.
Juniors Kevin Mahoney and Alec Cabello each led Canisius (23-4) with four hits in the game. Cabello's four hits set a career high and extended his career-best hitting streak to 11 games, the longest on the team this season. Mahoney fell a double short of the cycle with two singles, a triple and a home run. Cabello and Paul Panik each scored a school-record five runs in the game while junior Branson Joseph matched a school record with seven runs batted in while Perry Silverman scored a career-high four runs.
Chris Cox (1-0) earned his first career win by throwing five innings, allowing two hits and four runs, walking five and striking out two. After three of the first four batters reached in the first, Cox retired 14 of the last 18 batters he faced. Matt Weber allowed one run and struck out six in his three innings of relief while Bryan Smith allowed three runs in the ninth.
“It was nice for us to rebound after Tuesday's game,” Canisius coach Mike McRae said. “We played solid defensively, and it's good to get the bats rolling. Now we need to carry the momentum into the weekend.”
St. Bonaventure (15-10) took a 3-0 lead in the top of the first when Anthony Randich homered to right field after Cox walked the first two batters of the game. Canisius got one back in the bottom of the first on a sacrifice fly by Joseph. The Bonnies would make it 4-1 in the second inning when Kevin Suminski brought Nick Cunliffe home on an RBI groundout.
The Griffs would score four times in the second, starting a stretch where they would plate multiple runs in six consecutive innings and score 20 consecutive runs. Kevin Mailloux had an RBI single, Brian Burton walked with the bases loaded and Mahoney had a two-RBI single to make it 5-4.
The Griffs added four more in the third, which started with a home run to left by Panik, his second of the season. Adam Donato hit his fifth homer of the season in the fourth, a three-run shot to right field. Mahoney led off the fifth with a homer and also had an RBI single later in the inning while Joseph had a two-RBI single in the fifth. Joseph hit a grand slam to right in the sixth, as Canisius sent at least five men to the plate in each of their eight at-bats and batted around in three of the first five innings.
Canisius returns to the road for a three-game conference series this weekend at Marist. The Griffs and Red Foxes are scheduled to play a doubleheader on Saturday, with first pitch scheduled for 12 p.m.
Game Notes: Canisius scored more than 20 runs for the third time this season. Prior to 2008, the Griffs hadn't scored 20 runs or more in a game more than once in a season...The 24 runs stand as the most since the team scored a school-record 28 in 1957... Canisius has won three straight over St. Bonaventure and has won seven of its last nine over Big Four schools... Cabello is batting .511 (23-for-45) during his hitting streak... The 263 runs scored by the Griffs rank as the fifth most for a single season in school history while the 33 home runs rank third... Joseph's seven RBIs match the school record most recently accomplished by Mahoney on April 22, 2006... The 23 RBIs by the Griffs also set a school record... Canisius has scored in 24 of the last 31 innings... Canisius has scored four or more runs in 22 separate innings this season... The Griffs are averaging 15.3 runs per game in their six mid-week games in 2008... Mahoney matched his school record for at-bats in a game with seven... Donato has 17 runs scored and 19 RBIs in the last 11 games... Panik had eight runs scored coming into Wednesday's game... The 24 runs scored are a Demske Sports Complex record for a Canisius team.
